G3 300MHz Wallstreet II PDQ Laptop Runs Tiger

[Texas Mac Man]

I was given an old (1998) G3 300MHz Wallstreet II PDQ laptop with an 8GB HD, 192MB RAM & running OS 9.0.4. As a fun project & out of curiosity, I wondered if it would run Tiger. So I updated the OS to 9.2.2 & downloaded/installed XPostFacto. Then I installed OS 10.4 & updated it to 10.4.11. Both OSs are on the 8GB hard drive (only 860MB free). I’m pleased to report that Tiger runs, albeit somewhat slowly. I downloaded/installed Firefox 3 to replace Safari & downloaded/installed NeoOffice. The Wallstreet will boot into OS 9.2.2, boot into Tiger, and run the OS 9 applications in classic mode while booted in Tiger. The Wallstreet does not have built-in USB, so I plugged in a USB PCMCIA card that provides USB in both OS 9 & Tiger. I had an old ADB mouse to use instead of the touch mouse. It works in both OS 9 & 10. The Wallstreet had a removable VST ZIP100 drive that worked in OS 9. I downloaded an OS X ZIP driver & now it works in Tiger. One thing that's different in both OS 9 & 10.4 is the lack of operation of the Startup Disk control panel in OS 9 & Startup Disk preference in OS 10. Neither now work. XPostFacto's OS selection window has to be used to switch booting to either OS. I installed the freeware A-Dock (like OS X dock) for OS 9. I put the XPF icon in each dock for easy access.

Who says you can't teach an old dog (Mac) new tricks?

[krissel]

I have an upgraded PDQ with 466 processor, 512 RAM and 20G drive.  It has Panther, OS 9 and even an old 8.6 install. I haven't tried putting Tiger on it but if I had a CD set I would give it a whirl.  The only way I got Panther on it was to clone an install from a SCSI drive. I may try cloning via FW someday, when I have nothing else to do.   And yes, you do need to use XPF to go to the X install, not the usual startup disk panel.

That Wallstreet has the best keyboard I've ever used. Soooo comfortable. Only thing that keeps it from being really usable is the low VRAM compared to what is necessary for a lot of today's video.

BTW, if you put 512 RAM in your machine, note that shouldn't run permissions without removing one of the chips. For some reason it will really screw things up if you leave in the full memory.  

I also have Panther on my upgraded 9600 (G4/700, 1.5G RAM, 20G drive) thanks to XPF.  But that is as far as I've bothered with that machine as well. My upgraded DA runs much faster and likes Leopard.  


Could you give me a link to where you got the Zip driver for X?   I also have one of those zip drives for my Wallstreet.  

[Texas Mac Man]

QUOTE(krissel @ Mar 21 2010, 04:44 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Could you give me a link to where you got the Zip driver for X?   I also have one of those zip drives for my Wallstreet.  

After I installed Tiger, I inserted the VST ZIP drive & a ZIP disk, but it did not work. I did some Google searches for a driver & saw a forum where a responder said to install iodriver-mac-ppc-304. This driver is for OS 8.6-9.1, but after I installed it, the drive worked. I think since I have OS 9.2.2 installed, the drive may actually be working in classic mode. In the System Profiler, the ZIP drive shows up on the ATA bus along with the internal hard drive. Here's the link to get the driver.

Iomega Hard Drive Driver v3.0.4 Mac OS 8.6 - 9.1

Here is another driver IomegaWare 4.0.2 for Mac OS 8.6 - 10.2 : English

On that link is a Note: Mac OS X 10.3 and higher does not require IomegaWare software. For more information on using Iomega products in Mac OS X 10.3 & higher, please refer to Answer ID 18731. Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 drivers for Zip

The 4.0.2 driver appears to be for USB/Firewire connections. One of these solutions may work for you.

[krissel]

Thanks, Tom!